


In the Shadow of the Moon

by TheCookieOfDoom



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M, Rating for later chapters, Werewolf!Jon Snow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 21:51:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10773162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCookieOfDoom/pseuds/TheCookieOfDoom
Summary: “The beast is dead,” he said. The small gathered crowed took up a cry of similar words, all relieved to the point of tears that the creature would terrorize them no more. None noticed the bundle at his back, a swaddled, sleeping babe, too focused on the wolf’s remains. Someone took it and impaled it’s head on a pike to parade around. By morning, it would be posted just outside the town gates.





	In the Shadow of the Moon

A man walked into a quiet town, lit only by the full moon reflecting off the snow, his shoulders sunk with the weight of his grief. At his side, he carried a large sack, dripping red in his wake. He was haggard and bloodied, looking much older than his twenty-three years. As he walked past houses with warm fires burning inside, townspeople began to emerge. They followed him into the town square, passing whispers back and forth. It wasn’t until they mayor of the little village emerged that he opened the sack and pulled out the severed head of a great beast, tossing it to the ground. It rolled through the snow, coming to rest at the mayor’s feet.

“The beast is dead,” he said. The small gathered crowed took up a cry of similar words, all relieved to the point of tears that the creature would terrorize them no more. None noticed the bundle at his back, a swaddled, sleeping babe, too focused on the wolf’s remains. Someone took it and impaled it’s head on a pike to parade around. By morning, it would be posted just outside the town gates.

By morning, it was not a wolf’s head atop the pike, but that of a man with fair skin and even fairer hair.

***

“You must kill the boy,” Catelyn said without remorse, looking down at the babe in her husband’s arms with nothing but contempt in her cold eyes. “He will grow to be no better than his father. A soulless beast.”

“I will not harm this child, and neither will you,” Ned said, his voice sharp as he looked up at his wife. She simply clenched her jaw and gave a tense nod.

“As you wish, husband.”

“And seeing as the boy has no family other than us, we will raise him.”

“ _Fine_. But I will not have him anywhere near our son. I will not put Robb in danger for your sister’s wretched bastard.” She waited for her husband to nod his approval, watching as he hesitated. It would be cruel to isolate the boy, but it would be even worse to raise him with their son, and have him turn out to be like his father. He would surely kill Robb if that happened, and Catelyn was unwilling to risk her son’s life for a boy she bore no love for. Finally, Ned agreed. Only then did she take the boy from him.

“What am I to call him?”

“Jon. His name is Jon. He can never know who his father is.”

“He never will, I’ll make sure of that,” she said, as she looked down at Jon. She thought he must be a few months old, his eyes already open. Big and brown and bright, ignorant of the horrors that lead to his conception, the atrocities committed by his father. He smiled up at her as she carried him out of the room, and into the dark cellar where he would spend the next few years of his life, never seeing the sunlight. Or anyone other than Catelyn for that matter.

***

Jon’s first word was ‘mama’. He’d been reaching out to Catelyn, smiling brightly as she’d come to see him for the first time that day. Or for what he assumed was a new day; he never had a way of telling the time or day, trapped in the dark room as he was. She came to see him several times a day, usually to bring him something to eat. She never stayed long. But when Jon had called her ‘mama’, her expression had turned to one of stone.

“I am not your mother,” she’d hissed at the boy who could not understand, before turning back around storming up the stairs. She did not see him again that day.

***

“Why can I never leave here?” Jon asked, all big brown eyes and curiosity. Catelyn stood behind him, attempting to run a comb through his unruly curls so that she could cut his hair. For whatever reason he liked to keep it long—probably just so that he’d have something to play with, poor child—but it had gotten to the point where she couldn’t stand it.

“This is the only place that’s safe for you,” she said, reaching for the shears. “There are many creatures outside of here that would eat little boys like you.”

Jon turned to look up at her with wide eyes. “Really?”

“Indeed. With great, big, sharp teeth and purple eyes, and claws that could tear through your flesh and bones like a knife through butter. Now be still, child, I wouldn’t want to accidentally cut you.”

***

Catelyn opened the door to the cellar, a bag held in one hand and a lantern held in the other. She was wrapped in a fur cloak as she stared down the steps at Jon. The light reflected easily off his pale features, his translucent skin making him seem almost ghostlike. “Come, Jon, it’s time for you to leave.”

“I thought I can’t leave.” He was sitting in bed, blanket wrapped around him and pulled up to his nose as he looked up at her. “There’s monsters.”

“Do as I say, boy,” she said, voice hushed but no less sharp for it. She looked over her shoulder, as if checking to make sure no one was watching her. Flinching at her tone, Jon jumped out of bed and ran up the stairs to here, barefoot; she’d never given him any shoes, for there was no need for him to have any until now. She handed him a pair of boots to put on, likely belonging to Robb, the cousin he would never know he had.

“Here.” She handed him the pack, and draped a cloak over his shoulders to keep him from freezing in the snow outside, and led him outside. She pulled up the hood of her cloak, Jon following suit. As she opened the door, he hid behind her skirts. The twelve-year-old could hear the howling outside, a high keening that was surely the monsters she spoke of. But no, it was only the wind shrieking outside, whipping snow like shards of glass through the air.

“Hurry along, boy, we must move quickly, else we freeze to death in this bloody storm.” One hand fisted in her skirts, the other holding the fur cloak tight around himself to keep warm, Jon did his best to keep up with Catelyn’s long-legged strides.

It seemed like their trek through the snow would never end. A part of Jon thought that Catelyn was leading him into the forest to leave him to die; this would be the perfect time, the snow storm would hide her tracks and prevent Jon from following her back home. But eventually, they came across an old, dilapidated cottage hidden amongst the trees. Jon was shivering, his nose red and lips blue as Catelyn brought him inside. He stood in the center of the living room, looking around as she went to busy herself with lighting a fire in the fireplace.

If not for his eyes being so accustomed to the dark, Jon likely would have been blinded in the room. As it was, he could just make out the bits of furniture and trinkets filling the space. When the fire was finally lit, casting a warm glow over the room, Jon could see the devastation that had been wrought inside the cottage. It was a mess, as if a storm had raged inside, with claw marks on the walls and shredded furniture.

“What happened in here?” he asked, drifting towards the fire, beckoned by its warmth. Almost immediately his hair was wet, the warmth melting the snow in it.

“A monster came. He was angry at the one who lived here, so he destroyed everything.”

“Why are we here? What if he comes back?”

“He won’t. My husband killed him many years ago.” Jon had only met Ned a handful of times over the years. He seemed like a kind man, much more so than Catelyn. He sometimes brought Jon sweets, always telling him not to tell Catelyn. Jon hadn’t seen him in a long time, though, and he wondered if Ned knew that Catelyn took him away.

“This is where you shall live from now on,” she continued, turning away from the fire to regard the cottage. “We will have to fix it up a bit, but you will be safe out here.” And far away from her and the town. She didn’t say the words, but they still hung heavy between them. Jon nodded solemnly, playing with the edge of his cloak.

“Will you ever some back?” he asked, quiet. Catelyn wasn’t a kind woman, but she was the only human contact he had. He didn’t want to be left all alone in the forest to fend for himself.

“Yes, I shall. A few times a week, to make sure you’re alright, until you’re older.”

“Alright,” he said. Catelyn looked around with a dissatisfied sigh, taking off her cloak to hang by the door before going about righting the knocked over furniture. Not wanting her to get angry, Jon set down the bag she’d given him and took off his own cloak, going to help clean up the living room. It seemed to take ages, but soon enough it was clean, aside from the claw marks that were everywhere, of course. It was actually quite cozy, now, and Jon thought he would enjoy his time here very much. He would be able to explore the cottage and forest, and Catelyn wouldn’t be here to keep him locked inside. For the first time in his life, he would be free.

“It’s late, I believe we should get some rest. We have much work to do to get this place fixed up.”

“Are you going to be staying?”

“Yes. For several weeks.”

What Catelyn wasn’t telling him was that Ned and Robb were leaving in the morning to go to sea, trading. They would not be back for a good number of weeks, so Catelyn thought now would be the perfect time to get Jon settled in his new home. She would not feel as if she were neglecting her family by staying away for weeks, seeing as they wouldn’t be there anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> werewolf AUs, man. They're my weakness. I've got about 6 or so ideas bouncing around that I'm going to work on writing at some point. 
> 
> I should probably stop posting wips and start finishing the ones I already have up lmao xD
> 
> also! This is the only chapter with baby Jon, just to set the backstory. In the next one, he and Robb will be about 16-17


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